RUSSIAN INFLUENCES
The Earliest Signs of Anarchist Views in Russia in 1848 --
The Political, Economic, Mental, and Social Circumstances of
Anarchism in Russia -- Michael Bakunin -- Biography --
Bakunin's Anarchism -- Its Philosophic Foundations --
Bakunin's Economic Programme -- His Views as to the
Practicability of his Plans -- Sergei Netschajew -- The
Revolutionary Catechism -- The Propaganda of Action -- Paul
Brousse.
"L'Eglise et l'Etat sont
Mes deux betes noires."--BAKUNIN.
In Russia traces of Anarchist views are found as far back as the
stormy period of 1848-49. The extent of poverty, both mental and
material, in the vast dominion of the Czar caused the Russian people
to be less ready to accept and propagate political ideals of freedom
than to comprehend the Socialist doctrines that were then first
springing up in Western Europe. The great movement that seized upon
and shook all Central and Western Europe died down in Russia to a few
isolated centres of life, and was felt chiefly in secret debating
societies which eagerly received and disseminated the writings of
Considerant, Fourier, Saint-Simon, Blanc, and Proudhon.
The reading of Proudhon's works was even undertaken as a duty by the
most important of these societies, the so-called "Association of
Petraschewski." The extent to which his teaching impressed the
thoughtful members of this society, which included among others
Dostojewski, cannot easily be determined, since the companions of
Petraschewski, like the Nihilists of to-day, have always liked to
preserve a certain electicism. However, one trace of the influence of
Proudhon's doctrines upon its members is distinctly visible. Thus, an
associate, Lieutenant Palma of the Guards, had designed a book of
laws, in which we are surprised to meet the following passage, quite
in the Anarchist vein: "The chief distinctive feature of man is that
he is a being endowed with a personality, _i. e._, with reason and
freedom, which is an end in itself, and ought not under any
circumstances to be regarded as a means or end for others. From the
idea of personality is derived the idea of right. I may do everything
that I please, because each of my actions is the result of my reason."
Petraschewski himself, in a satirical _Dictionary_ which he published
under the pseudonym of Kirilow, praised as one of the merits of early
Christianity the abolition of private property and so on. We can
easily recognise here the elements of Proudhon's and Stirner's
Anarchism.
In spite of the severe prohibitive system that came in force after
1848, the teachings of English and French Socialists penetrated into
Russia even in this period, and were disseminated by such eminent men
as Tschernichevsky, Dobrolinbow, Herzen, Ogarjow, and others, to wider
circles, and again we see that interest is chiefly taken in Proudhon's
doctrines. These found their way deep into the heart of the masses,
even to the peasants. It must not be forgotten that to the Russian
peasants, with their already existing collectivist village
communities, Proudhon's ideas were far more easy to understand than an
educated Frenchman or German found them. There is probably no country
in the world where the principles of "federative Socialism," as taught
by Proudhon and later by Bakunin, were better understood than in
Russia, and Bakunin even denied the necessity of a Socialist
propaganda among Russian peasants, because he said that they already
possessed a knowledge of its elements.
The broad, subterranean stream of Nihilism, which, swelling from these
small beginnings to a dread power and strength, has undermined both
feet of the Colossus of the Russian Empire, disappears here from our
view. We can only notice individual men who, separated from the main
body of the movement, made ready the path of revolution in their
native land while living as voluntary or involuntary exiles in Western
Europe. It may appear superfluous to remark upon the important _role_
played by Russians on the revolutionary committees of every country.
And in no revolutionary movement have they gained such a disastrous
influence or played such a leading part as in Anarchism. When, in the
sixties, Socialism, with its organisation of the working-class
movement, grew up side by side with the revival of political
Liberalism, then, too, by a natural law, arose the extreme form of
protest against the aggregation of human society by Communism; the
Anarchist doctrine naturally rose up from the complete oblivion in
which it had lain for ten years. But modern Anarchism celebrated its
renascence in a totally different form: times and men had changed; the
philosophic period was passed, Stirner was dead, and Proudhon near his
end; Russian godfathers stood round the cradle of modern Anarchism.
Men of lofty idealism, who, impregnated with Western culture, with
bold violence, wished to anticipate by several ages the natural
development of mankind, have given up to Anarchy, as the empire of
perfect and free personality, their whole heart and mind. But those
who gave to this doctrine--justified to some extent, like every other
one-sided view, in spite of all its extravagance, contradictions, and
inherent impossibility--the sanction of the dagger, the revolver,
petroleum, and dynamite, were neither Frenchmen nor Germans, but the
half-civilised barbarians of the East.
The older form of Anarchism is marked by that lofty idealism which was
the general mental attitude of civilised Western Europe in the first
half of this century. The modern Anarchism of Bakunin, Netschajew,
Kropotkin, and others, is branded by the semi-civilised culture of
Russia, whose only object is the destruction of every existing state
of things, and indeed under existing circumstances it cannot be
otherwise. Dislike of, and discontent with real or fancied grievances,
combined with a stiff-necked, _doctrinaire_ attitude unprepared for
any _sacrificio del intelletto_, may indeed lead the children of
Western civilisation to a logical denial of the existing order of
society. But from this to the actual overthrow of all existing
conditions is a still farther step; and the positive intention of
annihilating the infinite mental and material inheritance which is the
outcome of civilisation, and which is not even denied by Anarchists
themselves, could only be conceived by a few degenerate individuals
who could only wish to see themselves _vis-a-vis de rien_ because of
their own utter lack of moral, intellectual, or material possessions.
Against these individuals there will always be arrayed an overwhelming
majority, who are ready to pledge the whole weight of their
superiority in culture for these possessions and guarantees of the
undeniable progress of mankind.
It is different in Russia. The political and social, the mental and
moral conditions of this large but barbarian empire do not afford much
opportunity for the growth even of a moderate amount of conservatism.
For what can there be to conserve, to maintain, or to improve in those
lives that depend on the mere sign of a bloodthirsty and savage
despotism, in that society that has hardly raised itself from the
primitive tribal level, in those rotten national economics, trade and
industry, in a spiritual life groaning under the banner of orthodoxy
and an arbitrary police, of popes and Tschinowniks? Must not the only
possible way, the inevitable presupposition of any possible
improvement be a desire for a total and universal overthrow, a radical
annihilation of all these conditions that render life and development
impossible? The Russian need not shrink from the thought that all
present conditions should be annihilated, for when he looks round
about him he finds nothing that his heart would care to preserve; and
the higher he ranks in the mental or social sphere, the stronger must
this "Nihilist" feeling naturally become. We who are citizens of a
State that, with all its faults, is yet richly blessed by
civilisation, show our comprehension of these facts by regarding with
a milder and more sympathetic glance the acts of a few desperate men
in Russia, which we should condemn severely if they occurred under the
happier circumstances that surround ourselves. In fact, nothing is
more natural--lamentable as it may be--than that, under circumstances
such as those of Russia, revolutionary Radicalism should assume this
purely negative "Nihilist" and murderously destructive character in
the desperate struggle of the individual against a society that is
totally degenerate.
"Among us," says Stepniak,[1] "a revolution or even a rising of any
importance, such as those in Paris, is absolutely impossible. Our
towns contain barely a tenth of the total population, and most of them
are merely great villages, miles and miles away one from another. The
real towns, such as, _e. g._, those of from 10,000 or 15,000
inhabitants, contain only 4 or 5 per cent. of the total
population--that is, about three or four million people. And the
Government which rules over the military contingent of the whole
people--that is, over 1,200,000 soldiers--can transform the five or
six chief towns, the only places where any movement would be possible,
into veritable camps, as is indeed the case. Against such a Government
any means are permissible; for it is no longer the guardian of the
people's will or even of the will of a majority. It is injustice
organised; a citizen need respect it no more than a band of highway
robbers. But how can we shake off this Camarilla that shelters itself
behind a forest of bayonets? How can we free the country from it?
Since it is absolutely impossible to remove this hindrance by force,
as in other more fortunate countries, a flank movement was necessary
in order to attack this Camarilla before it could make use of its
power, which thus was made useless in fruitless positions. Thus
Terrorism arose. Nurtured in hatred, suckled by patriotism and hope,
it grew up in an electric atmosphere, filled by the enthusiasm that is
awakened by a noble deed."
[1] _Underground Russia_, 3d edition, pp. 34 ff. and 41.
London, 1890.
These same features were necessarily assumed in Russia by Anarchist
doctrines, which from their very nature found a friendly and (as we
have seen) an early reception, and were practically incorporated with
Nihilism, but, as must be distinctly noted, without becoming identical
with it, or even forming an essential and integral part of it. In
fact, we find in avowed Nihilists and Panslavists, such as Herzen,
the fundamental Anarchist ideas present just as much as in Bakunin and
Kropotkin, whose Anarchism was superior to their Panslavism. In his
book, _After the Storm (Apres la Tempete)_, composed under the
impression made by the disappointed hopes and expectations of 1848,
Herzen exclaimed: "Let all the world perish! Long live Chaos and
Destruction"; and in a work that appeared almost at the same time,
_The Republic One and Indivisible_, he attacked the Republican form of
government as "the last dream of the old world," which yet could not
succeed in carrying out the great fundamental law of social justice.
Only when this has become really a truth, only when there is an end of
men being devoured by men, will humanity, born again, rise free and
happy from the ruins of this present cursed social structure: "Spring
will come; young, fresh life will blossom on the graves of the races
who have died as victims of injustice; nations will rise up full of
chaotic but healthy forces. A new volume of the world's history will
begin." The share of Nihilism in such ideas cannot be borrowed
altogether from Western Anarchism. There was perhaps a mutual
interaction of intellectual growth. But one gift Anarchism certainly
did receive from Nihilism: "the propaganda of action" does not spring
from the logical development of Proudhon's and Stirner's ideas, and
cannot be extorted or extracted from it in any way; it is rather the
consequence of the mixture of these ideas with Nihilism, a result of
Russian conditions. This was the pretty embellishment with which the
West received back Anarchism from Russian hands in the era of the
sixties and seventies. Bakunin was entrusted with the gloomy mission
of handing this gift over to us, and it is noticeable that in
Bakunin--as in Nihilism generally--Anarchism by no means takes up that
exclusively commanding position as in Proudhon, with whom he yet is so
closely connected.
* * * * *
Michael Bakunin was born in 1814 at Torschok in the Russian province
of Tver, being a scion of a family of good position belonging to the
old nobility. An uncle of Bakunin's was an ambassador under Catherine
II., and he was also connected by marriage with Muravieff. He was
educated at the College of Cadets in St. Petersburg, and joined the
Artillery in 1832 as an ensign. But either, as some say, because he
did not get into the Guards, or, as others say, because he could not
endure the rough terrorism of military life, he left the army in 1838,
and returned first to his father's house, where he devoted himself to
scientific studies. In 1841 Bakunin went to Berlin, and next year to
Dresden, where he studied philosophy, chiefly Hegel's but was also
introduced by Ruge into the German democratic movement. Even at that
time he had come to the conclusion (in an essay in the _Deutschen
Jahrbuecher_ on "The Reaction in Germany") that Democracy must proceed
to the denial of everything positive and existing, without regard for
consequences. Pursued by Russian agents, he went in 1843 to Paris, and
thence to Switzerland, where he became an active member of the
Communist-Socialist movement. The Russian Government now refused him
permission to stay abroad any longer, and as he did not obey repeated
commands to return to his native land, it confiscated his property.
From Zuerich, Bakunin returned a second time to Paris, and made the
acquaintance of Proudhon. If here was laid the foundation for his
later Anarchist views, we still find him active in another political
direction. In a high-flown speech made at the Polish banquet on the
anniversary of the Warsaw Revolution (29th November, 1847), Bakunin
recommended the union of Russia and Poland in order to revolutionise
the former. The Russian Government thereupon demanded his extradition,
and set a price of ten thousand silver roubles on his head. In spite
of this, Bakunin escaped safely to Brussels. After the Revolution of
February, he returned to Paris, then went in March to Berlin, and in
June to attend the Slav Congress in Prague.
The question has not unnaturally been raised, What had Bakunin the
cosmopolitan to do at such an institution of national Chauvinism as
the Congress? What had the ultra-radical Democrat and sworn enemy of
the Czar to do with a congress held by the favour of Nicholas, and
visited by orthodox Archimandrites, by the envoys of Slav princes, and
privy councillors decorated with Russian orders? When the drama at
Prague ended with a sanguinary insurrection and the bombardment of
Prague, Bakunin disappeared, only to re-appear again, now in Saxony
and now in Thuringia, under all kinds of disguises, and (as those who
are well-informed maintain)[2] constantly occupied with the intention
of causing a new insurrection at Prague. Here too he was in
contradiction with the attitude that he had adopted both before and
after this event, for he must have known what a sorry part the Czechs
had played and still were playing as regards the Vienna Democracy and
the efforts for Hungarian emancipation.
[2] Karl Blind, "Vaeter des Anarchismus" (Persoenliche
Erinnerungen), 4 feuilletons in the _Neue Freie Presse_,
1894.
During the insurrection in May, 1849, we find Bakunin in Dresden, as a
member of the provisional government, and taking a prominent part in
the defence of the city against the Prussian troops. Bakunin here
appears as a champion of the very same cause that he had attacked at
the Prague Congress. After the fall of Dresden he went with the
provisional government to Chemnitz, where on the 10th of May he was
captured and condemned to death by martial law. The sentence, however,
was not carried out, since Austria had demanded his extradition. Here
he was also condemned at Olmutz to be hanged; but Austria handed this
offender, who was so much in request, over to Russia, which country
also wished to get hold of him. By a remarkable chance, Bakunin
escaped the death to which here also he was condemned, by receiving a
pardon from the Czar; he was imprisoned first in the fortress of SS.
Peter and Paul, and then at that of Schluesselburg; and in 1855,
through the exertions of his influential relatives, was banished to
Siberia. At that time a report had generally gained credence in
Europe, although lacking any foundation, that Bakunin had by no means
owed his life, that three countries had already condemned, to the
chance favour of a monarch usually far from gracious; and the distrust
of the apostle of Revolution was still more greatly increased when, in
1861, he succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement in the Amur
district, and returned to Europe _via_ Japan and America. Now the
otherwise mysterious success of this escape has been explained. The
Governor of the Amur (Muravieff-Amurski) happened to be a cousin of
Bakunin's relation, Muravieff, and moreover (according to Bakunin's
own statement),[3] a secret adherent of the revolutionary movement. He
appears to have lived on a very intimate footing with Bakunin, and
granted the exile all kinds of favours and freedom; and thus Bakunin
was entrusted with the mission of travelling through Siberia in order
to describe its natural resources. While on this journey he succeeded
in embarking on a ship in the harbour of Nikolajewsk, and escaping. In
1861 he arrived in England, and settled in London, where he entered
into relations with the members of the "International." As to the part
that Bakunin played here, as he did later, as an agitator for
Anarchist ideas, we will speak later when we come to the history of
the spread of Anarchism.
[3] There is a kind of autobiography for the period 1849-60,
by Bakunin himself in a letter, dated from Irkutsk (8th
December, 1860) to Herzen. _Michael Bakunin's
Social-Political Correspondence with Alexander Iw. Herzen and
Ogarjow_, with a biographical introduction, appendices, and
notes by Professor Michael Dragomanoff. Authorised
translation from the Russian, by Dr. Boris Minzes, Stuttgart,
1895 (_Bibl. russischer Denkwuerdigkeiten_, edited by Dr. Th.
Schiemann, vol. vi.), No. 6, pp. 29 and 99.
When the Revolution broke out in Poland in 1863, Bakunin was one of
the leaders of the expedition of Polish and Russian emigrants that was
planned in Stockholm, and which was to revolutionise Russia from the
Baltic coast. When this attempt also failed, he stayed sometimes in
Russia and sometimes in Italy, devoting himself to Socialist
agitation, and being always on every favourable opportunity active
either as an apostle of Anarchist doctrine or as an agitator in the
preparations and _mise-en-scene_ of a revolution. We shall speak of
this later. The last years of his life were spent alternately in
Geneva, Locarno, and Bern, where he died on July 1, 1878, at the
hospital, after refusing all nourishment, and thus hastening his end.
The Anarchist epoch of his life is included mainly in the last ten
years of his career, so fertile in mistakes and changes of opinion.
Anarchism owes its renascence to his active agitation, regardless of
all consequences; and even in his writings the thinker lags far behind
the agitator. Bakunin at best could only be called the theorist of
action; his activity as an author was limited to scattered articles in
journals and a few (mostly fragmentary) pamphlets. He was right in his
answer to those critics who reproached him with this: "My life itself
is but a fragment." Where could he have found in his life-long
wanderings the peaceful leisure in which to develop his thoughts
quietly or to express them in a work such as Proudhon's _Justice_ or
Stirner's _Einziger_? Besides, he lacked the gift of mental depth and
firmly grounded knowledge. His style possesses something of his
fluency as a demagogue, but his procedure in science reminds of the
soaring dialectics of the revolutionary orator, full of repetitions,
and attractive rather than convincing. In his case a pose always takes
the place of an argument.
It is said that during the period of his association with the
"International" Bakunin had had the intention of setting forth his
ideas in two large works, one of which would have been a criticism of
the existing arrangements of the State, property, and religion, while
the other would have treated of the problems of the European nations,
especially the Slavs, and have shown their solution by social
revolution and anarchy. But, of course, these two works were never
written, and there remain to us only some remnants of numerous
fragmentary and formless manuscripts, originating in the period of
1863-73. Among these is a _Catechism of Modern Freemasonry_, the
_Revolutionary Catechisms_, not to be compared with the later
catechism of Netschajew, which was wrongly ascribed to Bakunin; also
the wordy essay on _Federation, Socialism, and Anti-theology_, which
as a proposal designed for the central committee of the League of
Freedom and Peace at Geneva, but never published, presents a short
reprint of Proudhon's _Justice_; and lastly, a fragment published in
1882 by C. Cafiero and Elisee Reclus, after his manuscript, _Dieu et
l'Etat_, which seems intended to lay a philosophic foundation for
Bakunin's Anarchism.
This fragment, in which Bakunin follows the lead of the great
materialists and Darwinians, begins with Hegelianism. Man (it says) is
of animal origin; all development proceeds from the "animal nature" of
man, and strives to reach the negation of this, or humanity.
"Animality" is the starting-point; "humanity," its opposite, is the
goal of development. The first human being, the pitheco-anthropus,
distinguished itself, according to Bakunin, from other apes, by two
gifts: the capacity for thinking, and, thereby, for raising itself.
Bakunin, therefore, distinguishes three elements in all life: (1)
animality; (2) thought; and (3) rising. To the first corresponds
social and private economy; to the second, science; to the third,
freedom. After establishing these peculiar categories, Bakunin never
troubles about them again throughout his book, and does not know what
use to make of them; they were nothing but a pretty philosophic pose,
sand thrown in one's eyes. He goes farther, and declares next that he
intends to penetrate into the reason "of the idealism of Mazzini,
Michelet, Quinet, and [_sic!_] Stuart Mill." Again we hear nothing
more throughout this fragmentary work of the thus announced refutation
of Mill's idealism. It is limited to giving a rather shallow
reproduction of Proudhon's contrast between religion and revolution.
"The idea of God," says Bakunin, "implies the abdication of human
reason and justice; it is the most decisive denial of human freedom,
and leads necessarily to the enslaving of humanity, both in theory and
practice.... The freedom of man consists solely in following natural
laws, because he has recognised them himself as such, and not because
they are imposed upon him from without by the will of another, whether
divine or human, collective or individual.... We reject all
legislation, every authority, and every privileged, recognised
official and legal influence, even if it has proceeded from the
exercise of universal suffrage, since it could only benefit a ruling
and exploiting minority against the interests of the great enslaved
majority." And so forth.
Here already, in this partial repetition of Proudhon's views, we see
Bakunin go far beyond Proudhon in an essential point, the question of
universal suffrage. Proudhon had already perceived in "the
organisation of universal suffrage" the only possible means of
realising his views. Bakunin rejects this view, and, as will be shown
later, this question formed the chief stumbling-block in his
differences with the "International." But in a much more important and
decisive point Bakunin goes farther than Proudhon, or rather sinks
behind him.
Proudhon always based all his hopes on the diffusion of knowledge; the
demo-cracy was to be changed into a demo-paedy, and thus gradually led
up to Anarchy of its own accord. Bakunin anathematises knowledge just
as much as religion; for it also enslaves men. "What I preach," he
says in the book quoted, "is to a certain extent the revolt of life
against knowledge, or rather against the domination of knowledge, not
in order to do away with knowledge--that would be a crime of high
treason against humanity (_laesae humanitatis_)--but in order to bring
it back to its place so surely that it would never leave it again....
The only vocation of knowledge is to illuminate our path; life alone,
in its full activity, can _create_, when freed from all fetters of
dominion and doctrine." He also thinks that knowledge should become
the common possession of all, but to the question as to whether men
should, until this takes place, follow the directions of knowledge, he
answers at once, "No, not at all."
In these two divergences from Proudhon lies the essential difference
between the modern and the older Anarchism. Bakunin rejects the
proposal to bring about Anarchy gradually by a process of political
transformation by means of the use of universal suffrage, equally with
the gradual education of mankind up to this form of society by
knowledge. Not by evolution, but by revolt, revolution, and similar
means is Anarchy to be installed to-day--Anarchy in the sense of the
setting free of all those elements which we now include under the name
of evil qualities, and the annihilation of all that is termed "public
order." Everything else will look after itself.
Bakunin wisely did not enter into descriptions of the future: "All
talk about the future is criminal, for it hinders pure destruction,
and steers the course of revolution." His views as to the nearest
goal, after general expropriation and the annihilation of all powers,
are almost exclusively derived from Proudhon's, and at most go beyond
them only in so far as Bakunin does not recognise as obligatory that
coalescence of "productive" groups into a higher collective entity,
which Proudhon regarded as an organic society, but merely allows them
to remain as groups. If several such local groups wish to unite into a
larger association, this might be done, but no compulsion must thereby
be exercised upon individuals. The influence of Stirner, with whom
Bakunin was acquainted before 1840, must account for this. We
recognise Bakunin's theory best and most authentically from the
following extract, in which he comprises it in the programme of the
"Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste" of Geneva,[4] founded by
himself. It runs thus:
[4] Compare the chapter on "The Spread of Anarchy."
1. The alliance professes atheism; it aims at the abolition of
religious services; the replacement of belief by knowledge, and divine
by human justice; and the abolition of marriage as a political,
religious, judicial, and civic arrangement.
2. Before all it aims at the definite and complete abolition of all
classes, and the political, economic, and social equality of the
individual, of either sex; and to attain this end it demands, before
all, the abolition of inheritance, in order that for the future
usufruct may depend on what each produces, and that, in accordance
with the decision of the last Congress of Workmen at Brussels [in
1868], the land, the instruments of production, as well as all other
capital, can only be used by the workers, _i. e._, by the agricultural
and industrial communities.
3. It demands for all children of both sexes, from their birth
onwards, equality of the means of development, education, and
instruction in all stages of knowledge, industry, and art, with the
general object that this equality, at first only economic and social,
will ultimately result in producing more and more a greater natural
equality of individuals, by causing to disappear all those artificial
inequalities which are the historic products of a social organisation
which is as false as it is unjust.
4. As an enemy of all despotism, recognising no other form of policy
than Republicanism, and rejecting unconditionally every reactionary
alliance, it rejects all political action that does not aim directly
and immediately at the triumph of the cause of labour against capital.
5. It recognises that all existing political States, having authority,
by gradually confining themselves to merely administrative functions
of the public service in their respective countries, will be immerged
into the universal union of free associations, both agricultural and
industrial.
6. Since the social question can only be solved, definitely and
effectively, on the basis of the universal and international
solidarity of the workmen of all countries, the alliance rejects any
policy founded on so-called patriotism and the rivalry of nations.
7. It desires the universal association of all local associations by
means of freedom.[5] The question as to how this Anarchist condition
of society, which Bakunin himself described as "amorphism," was to be
brought about has been answered in no dubious fashion by Bakunin and
his adherents in deeds of violence, such as that attempted by the
leader himself in the Lyons riot of 1870 and the occurrences in Spain
in 1873.[6] Bakunin tried to deceive himself into thinking that he
deplored the violence that was sometimes necessary, and wrapped
himself in the protecting cloak of the believer in evolution, who
would wake up some fine morning and find that Anarchy had become an
accomplished fact. By passive resistance in politics and economics, by
complete abstention from politics, and by a "universal strike,"
Anarchy would suddenly come into being of itself. At the proper time
all the workmen of every industry of a country, or indeed of the whole
world, would stop work, and thereby, in at most a month, would compel
the "possessing" classes either to enter voluntarily into a new form
of social order, or else to fire upon the workmen, and thus give them
the right to defend themselves, and at this opportunity to upset
entirely the whole of the old order of society. Again we see that
force is the ultimate resort; nor could it be otherwise after Bakunin
had uncompromisingly rejected every attempt to arrive gradually at his
ideal end by means of political and intellectual progress. In the
_Letter to a Frenchman_ he confesses the true character of the
revolution which he advocates:
[5] Testut Oscar, _Die Internationale, ihr Wesen und ihre
Bestrebungen_.
[6] Friedrich Engels, _Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit_,
Denkschrift ueber den Aufstand in Spanien im Winter, 1873;
reprinted in _Internationales aus dem Volkstaate_ (1871-75),
Berlin, 1894.
"Of course matters will not be settled quite peacefully at first," he
says; "there will be battles; public order, the sacred _arche_ of the
bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the first facts that will emerge
from such a state of affairs can only end in what people like to call
a civil war. For the rest, do not be afraid that the peasants will
mutually devour each other; even if they attempt to do so at first, it
will not be long before they are convinced of the obvious
impossibility of continuing in this way, and then we may be certain
that they will attempt to unite among themselves, to agree and to
organise. The need of food and of feeding their families, and (as a
consequence of this) of protecting their houses, family, and their own
life against unforeseen attacks--all this will compel them to enter
upon the path of mutual adjustment. Nor need we believe, either, that
in this adjustment, that has been come to without any public
guardianship of the State, the strongest and richest will exert a
preponderating influence by the mere force of circumstances. The
wealth of the rich will cease to be a power as soon as it is no longer
secured by legal arrangements. As to the strongest and most cunning,
they will be rendered harmless by the collective power of the
multitude of small and very small peasants: so, too, in the case of
the rural proletariat, who are to-day merely a multitude given over to
dumb misery, but who will be provided by the revolutionary movement
with an irresistible power. I do not assert that the rural districts
that will thus have to reorganise themselves from top to bottom will
create all at once an ideal organisation which will in all respects
correspond to our dreams. But of this I am convinced, that it will be
a living organisation, and, as such, a thousand times superior to
that which now exists. Besides, this new organisation, since it is
always open to the propaganda of the towns, and can no longer be
fettered and so to speak petrified by the legal sanctions of the
State, will advance freely and develop and improve itself, in ways
that are uncertain, yet always with life and freedom, and never merely
by decrees and laws, till it reaches a standpoint that is as rational
as we could possibly hope at the present day."
Bakunin has expressly excepted secret societies and plots from the
means of bringing about this revolution. But this did not hinder him
from becoming himself, as occasion suited, the head of a secret
society, formed according to all the rules of the conspirator's art.
Fundamentally opposed as our minds must be to men like Proudhon and
Stirner, we yet readily recognise in them their undoubted personal
talents, both of mind, spirit, and character, and, above all, have
never questioned their good faith. But we cannot speak thus of
Bakunin. In all the changes and chances of a life that was singularly
rich in change, there were far too many dark points, to which evil
report had ample opportunity to attach itself. We do not see in
Bakunin that proletarian in wooden sabots and blouse, with the eager
thirst for knowledge and keen desire to raise himself, who dreams as
he works before the compositor's frame of a juster order of things in
this world, yet more for others than for himself, and would like to
arrange society itself laboriously in a well-ordered compositor's
case; nor do we see in Bakunin that plain German schoolmaster who
would people society with mere sons of Prometheus, while he himself
totters starving to the grave; who dedicates his gospel of a doctrine
that would overthrow the world from pole to pole "to his Darling,
Marie Donhardt," as though it were a tender love-song. Bakunin remains
to us for ever as the commercial traveller of eternal revolution in a
magnificent pose, and from the red cloak so picturesquely cast around
him peeps out unpleasantly the dagger of Caserio.
* * * * *
We cannot leave Bakunin without a passing mention of his favourite
pupil Sergei Netschajew,[7] although he was still less of a pure
Anarchist than Bakunin, and can still less easily be separated from
Russian Nihilism.
[7] For Netschajew, cf. the article "Anarchism" in Wurm's
_Volks-lexicon_, vol. i., and in the _Handwoerterbuch der
Staatswissenschaften_, Jena, 1890, vol. i.; also E. von
Laveleye, _Socialism of the Present_ (German ed. by Ch.
Jasper, Halle, A.D. S., 1895). All these, however, are based
almost exclusively on the information in the memoir,
_L'Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste et l'Association
Internationale des Travailleurs_: Report and documents
published by order of the International Congress at The Hague
(London and Hamburg, 1873)--a very one-sided party brochure
of the Marxists against the Bakuninists, which has been
proved wrong on more points than one. We regret all the more
that we are limited to this source of information.
But a picture of this pair of twin brothers will show us better than
long essays how much of the total phenomenon of modern Anarchism is a
product of Western hyper-philosophy, and how much is an inheritance of
Russian Nihilism. Sergei Netschajew, the apostle and saint of Nihilist
poesy, was born at St. Petersburg in 1846, the son of a court
official, and in time became teacher at a parish school in his native
town. In 1865 he went to Moscow, where he became associated with the
students of the Academy of Agriculture, and founded a secret society
that called itself "The People's Tribunal," and formed ostensibly the
"Russian Branch of the International Workers' Union." Both in St.
Petersburg and elsewhere he appeared as the founder of such branch
societies, attached to the Bakuninist section of the "International,"
and chiefly recruited from the ranks of youthful students. In a
pamphlet issued later (1869), in conjunction with his master, Bakunin,
called _Words Addressed to Students_, he exhorted the students not to
trouble about this "empty knowledge" in whose name it was meant to
bind their hands, but to leave the University and go among the
people.[8] The Russian people, he said, were now in the same condition
as in the time of Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, when Stenka
Razin, a robber chieftain, placed himself at the head of a terrible
insurrection. The young people who now leave their place in society
and lead the life of the people would form an invincible, collective
Stenka Razin, who would put themselves at the head of the fight for
emancipation, and carry it through successfully. For this purpose they
should not merely turn to the peasants and make them revolt, but also
call in the help of robbers. "Robbery," he said, "was one of the most
honourable forms of Russian national life." The robber is a hero, the
protector and avenger of the people, the irreconcilable enemy of the
State, and of all civic and social order founded by the State, who
fights to the death against all this civilisation of officials,
nobles, priests, and the crown. The Russian robber is the true and
only revolutionary, the revolutionary _sans phrase_, without rhetoric
derived from books, indefatigable, irreconcilable, and in action
irresistible, a social revolutionary of the people, not a political
revolutionary of the classes.
[8] The expression "go among the people" has since become a
well-known Nihilist term.
This was the programme of the society called "The People's Tribunal,"
as it was that of Nihilism generally, and, transferred from this into
Western conditions, became the active programme of the "propaganda of
action." At the same time as the _Words_, there were circulating in
the circles influenced by Netschajew other writings, either written
exclusively by himself or in conjunction with Bakunin, such as the
_Formula of the Revolutionary Question, the Principles of Revolution,
the Publications of the People's Tribunal_,--all of which preached
"total destruction" and Anarchism. The opponents of the Bakuninists
maintain that the only purpose of these writings was, by their
bloodthirsty tone, to compromise genuine revolutionaries, and give the
police a weapon against them. But the whole spirit of Bakunin is
expressed in the revolutionary _Catechism_,[9] first made accessible
to the public in the trial of Netschajew. It was formerly thought that
Bakunin was the author, but now it is pretty well agreed that it was
Netschajew.
[9] The _Catechism_ is reproduced in the before-mentioned
memoir, _L'Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste_, viii.
(_L'Alliance en Russie et le Catechisme Revolutionnaire_),
pp. 90-95.
The catechism, a condensation of revolutionary fanaticism,
commands the revolutionary to break with all that is dear to him,
and, troubling nought about law or morality, family or State,
joy or sorrow, to devote himself wholly to his task of total
_bouleversement_. "If he continues to live in this world, it is only
in order to annihilate it all the more surely. A revolutionary
despises everything _doctrinaire_, and renounces the science and
knowledge of this world in order to leave it to future generations; he
knows but one science: that of destruction. For that, and that only,
he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and even medicine. For the
same purpose he studies day and night living science--men, their
character, positions, and all the conditions of the existing social
order in all imaginary spheres. The object remains always the same:
the quickest and most effective way possible of destroying the
existing order" (Sec.Sec. 2, 3). "For him exists only one pleasure, one
consolation, one reward, one satisfaction, the reward of revolution.
Day and night he must have but one thought--inexorable destruction" (Sec.
6). "For the purpose of irrevocable destruction a revolutionary can,
and may, often live in the midst of society and appear to have the
most complete indifference as to his surroundings. A revolutionary may
penetrate everywhere, into high society, among the nobility, among
shopkeepers, into the military, official, or literary world, into the
'third section' [the secret police], and even into the Imperial
palace" (Sec. 14). The catechism divides society into several categories:
those in the first of these categories are condemned to death without
delay. "In the first place we must put out of the world those who
stand most in the way of the revolutionary organisation and its work"
(Sec. 16). The members of the second category are to be allowed to live
"provisionally," in order that, "by a series of abominable deeds they
may drive the people into unceasing revolt" (Sec. 17). The third class,
the rich and influential, must be exploited for the sake of the
revolution, and made to become "our slaves." With the fourth class,
Liberals of various shades of opinion, arrangements must be made on
the basis of their programme, they must be initiated and compromised,
and made use of for the perturbation of the State. The fifth class,
the doctrinaires, must be urged forward; while the sixth and most
important class consists of the women, for making use of whom for the
purposes of the revolution Netschajew gives explicit directions. It is
the tactics of the Jesuits in all their details that are here
recommended for the inauguration of the most moral ordering of the
universe. The last section of the catechism, which treats of the duty
of the People's Tribunal Society towards the people, reads: "The
Society has no other purpose but the complete emancipation and
happiness of the people, _i. e._, of hardworking humanity. But
proceeding from the conviction that this emancipation and this
happiness can only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular
revolution, the Society will use every effort and every means to
heighten and increase the evils and sorrows which at length will wear
out the patience of the people and encourage an insurrection _en
masse_. By a popular revolution the Society does not mean a movement
regulated according to the classic patterns of the West, which is
always restrained in face of property and of the traditional social
order of so-called civilisation and morality, and which has hitherto
been limited merely to exchanging one form of politics for another,
and at most to founding a so-called revolutionary State. The only
revolution that can do any good to the people is that which utterly
annihilates every political idea. With this end in view, the People's
Tribunal has no intention of imposing on the people an organisation
coming from above. The future organisation will, without doubt,
proceed from the movement and life of the people; but that is the
business of future generations. Our task is terrible, inexorable, and
universal destruction."
The views thus expressed are quite in harmony with what Netschajew has
written about revolutionary action in the writings mentioned above.
"Words," he exclaims, "have no value for us, unless followed at once
by action. But all is not action that is so-called: for example, the
modest and too-cautious organisation of secret societies without
external announcements to outsiders is in our eyes merely ridiculous
and intolerable child's-play. By external announcements we mean a
series of actions that positively destroy something--a person, a
cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people.
Without sparing our lives, we must break into the life of the people
with a series of rash, even senseless, actions, and inspire them with
a belief in their powers, awake them, unite them, and lead them on to
the triumph of their cause."
The tendency which here develops into the recommendation of violence
should be carefully noticed; outrage is no longer recommended, because
the purposes of revolution can be served thereby directly, but
indirectly, as a kind of sanguinary advertisement to the indolent
masses, who would thus have their attention drawn to the theory by
such terrible events. That is the diabolical basis of the "propaganda
of action," which was defined by another follower of Bakunin--Paul
Brousse, the man of the Jura Federation (see the chapter on "The
Spread of Anarchy"). "Deeds," says Brousse, "are talked of on all
sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay
attention to the new doctrine, and discuss it. Let men once get as far
as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them." Therefore he
recommended revolution and outrage, not in order to upset existing
society thereby, but for the purpose of the "propaganda." Brousse only
had to borrow the thought, as we see, from Netschajew; and it is not
difficult to say whence the latter got it. The opinion which ascribes
the authorship of the _Catechism of Revolution_, and of the other
writings above mentioned not to Netschajew but to Bakunin himself, has
perhaps some foundation. But it matters little who is the author of
these works. Netschajew is thoroughly imbued with his master's spirit,
and he might even say to him (p. 115):
"... What thou hast thought in thy mind
That I do, that I perform.
And e'en though years may pass away
I never rest, until to fact
Is changed the word that thou did'st say,
'T is thine to think and mine to act.
Thou art the judge, the headsman I;
And as a servant I obey;
The sentence which thou dost imply,
E'en though unjust, I never stay.
In ancient Rome, a lictor dark
An axe before the consul bore;
Thou hast a lictor too, but mark!
The axe comes after, not before.
I am thy lictor; and alway
With bare, bright axe behind thee tread;
I am the deed, be what it may,
Begotten from thy thought unsaid."
In the year 1869 a sudden end was put to Netschajew's activity in
Russia. Among his most trusted friends in Moscow was a certain Iwanow,
one of the most respected and influential members of the secret
society. Iwanow himself lived in ascetic seclusion, and in his leisure
time gave the peasants instruction gratis, establishing classes of
poor students, and so forth. He was a fanatic in his belief in the
social revolution. He had also established cheap eating-houses for
poor students, and one day these were closed by the police, and their
founder vanished, because Netschajew had placarded revolutionary
appeals in them. In despair at this, Iwanow wished to retire from the
secret society. Netschajew, believing that he might betray its
secrets, enticed Iwanow one evening into a remote garden, and with the
help of two fellow-conspirators, Pryow and Nicolajew, shot him, and
threw the corpse into a pond. He then fled, and arrived safely in
Switzerland, where, in conjunction with Bakunin, he produced the
literary efforts referred to above. Soon, however, he quarrelled with
Bakunin, owing to certain sharp practices of which he was guilty, went
to London, edited a paper called _The Commonwealth_ (_Die Giemeinde_),
in which he bitterly attacked his former master, and at last, in 1872,
was handed over to Russia at the request of the Russian Government.
Since then nothing more was heard of him; Netschajew disappeared, like
the demon in a pantomime, "down below."